Wednesday

Apr 23, 2014 at 10:23 PM

NEWPORT — Touching on everything from national defense to the economy to gun rights, 29-year-old Cormick Lynch announced Wednesday that he is running for Congress.His goal: restore faith in America and...

NEWPORT — Touching on everything from national defense to the economy to gun rights, 29-year-old Cormick Lynch announced Wednesday that he is running for Congress.

His goal: restore faith in America and its ability to lead from a position of strength.

The former Marine, speaking to about 60 people at the Hotel Viking, did not mention by name the man he hopes to unseat — U.S. Rep. David Cicilline — but he said repeatedly during a 37-minute speech that the state’s Democratic congressional delegation, and President Obama, have failed the people they represent.

“They must go,” he said several times, reciting the words as if they were a motto.

A Republican, Lynch described what he sees as failures at both the state and national level. Among them:

Rhode Island’s ranking as the state with the nation’s highest unemployment.

The political gridlock in Washington.

The ongoing effort to “defeat an enemy” in Afghanistan that “trains on monkey bars” and “wears ski masks,” while the United States “spends more on national security than the next 23 countries in the world combined.”

He made it clear that he was not placing blame on the soldiers.

“Never before in our nation’s history has a civilian administration accomplished so little with so much,” he said. “Not only are our current politicians incapable of winning a war, they won’t so much as invest themselves in a conflict they send others to fight.”

Turning to the economy, he said an “overreaching” and “expanding government” is hurting the economy, not helping.

“We can spend the afternoon debating the tax code, but the core question is why does the government feel that they steward this dollar better than me or anyone else in the audience?” he said. “I think you can do a better job with that dollar than the government and if you don’t believe me Google Solyndra or 38 Studios.”

(Solyndra, a Fremont, Calif., solar panel manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy in 2011 after receiving more than $500 million in federal loans.)

Lynch also blamed Democrats for failing to rein in higher education costs, saying “the rise … is only widening the gap between those who have access to it and those who don’t.”

And speaking on gun rights, he said “now more than ever,” in an age of terrorism, “we must safeguard our right to bear arms.”

“If you wait until you need to use the Second Amendment to give it the respect it warrants, it will be too late,” he said.

Lynch grew up in South Kingstown and enlisted in the Marines at age 19, according to a handout he provided at his announcement. At age 21, he was in Iraq, “where he served as the lead machine gunner for his platoon in the fight to regain Fallujah as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

After returning, he worked as an East Providence firefighter while attending the University of Rhode Island part-time. But after suffering a leg injury “that would prevent him from working,” he transferred to the University of Delaware and earned a bachelor’s degree in finance. He worked as a private equity analyst with JP Morgan, but he left Wall Street in 2013 to start a nonprofit company that would help combat veterans pay for college. He hopes to have the company up and running this summer.

Lynch is not the only challenger for the 1{+s}{+t} District congressional seat.

Matt Fecteau, a 31-year-old former Army captain, is running as a Democrat, and Stan Tran, a 26-year-old medical school student at Brown University, is running as a Republican.

Lynch acknowledged that he has an uphill fight, but said Cicilline’s past Republican challengers, former state police Supt. Brendan Doherty and former state Rep. John Loughlin, “came very close.”

“It’s a very winnable race,” he said.

BIO

Cormick Brendan Lynch

Residence: Newport

Age: 29

Occupation: Candidate for Congress

Party: Republican

Office sought: 1st Congressional District seat

Education: Bachelor’s degree in finance, University of Delaware

Family: Single

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